Bright fut
beckons for company with a proud history. Today, when so many of the businesses in Norwich are engaged in professional and financial services, it can be easy to forget what a significant manufacturing city it has been throughout its history.
26
One of the companies keeping that tradition alive through the decades has been Laurence, Scott & Electromotors, which was first established in 1883. The company is now part of the ATB Group UK, which includes ATB Morley in Leeds and ATB Special Products in Birmingham. ATB is actually an Austrian group, which is in turn owned by Wolong, in China, one of the biggest motor manufacturers in the world. ATB Laurence Scott, which can trace its beginnings back to the 19th Century, is one of the world’s foremost suppliers of high and low voltage AC and DC electric motors as well as electro-mechanical power transmission products, including generators, gearboxes, drives, clutches and brakes for sectors including marine and oil and gas. Having enjoyed a long and proud history, the firm embarked on the latest stage in its life in 2007 when, having entered administration, it was rescued by Leeds-based ATB Morley on behalf of the ATB group. ATB Group UK Director and Chairman Ian Lomax said: “For us, it was an easy decision to take over a company that had such a proud history and a well-established name. “Although decisions in business are always based on finance, we were also very proud to acquire this business with its reputation and history.” That history has its origins at a time in the 19th Century when there was
business and the company grew rapidly with orders from France, South Africa and Russia. Scott‘s technical brilliance kept the firm at the forefront of development and, as the century neared its end, the company moved to Hardy Road. The firm expanded steadily and there were more than 500 people on the payroll in October, 1914. During World War One, the firm did much of its business with the Admiralty and in 1915, with the help of Boulton & Paul, built shops to help with the shell shortage.
Ian Lomax Director and Chairman ATB Group much interest in the new electric light following the invention of the filament bulb. Alongside this came the discovery of the principles of electromagnetic induction and the experiments by the likes of Michael Faraday, who discovered induction, and Nickola Tesla, who patented the induction motor. The City of Norwich was interested in taking advantage of the developments and in 1879 there was a demonstration in St. Andrew‘s Hall, by an American company for the Town Council. A generating station was set up close to the Blackfriars‘ Crypt, although it took thirty years for a reliable system to be installed.
NORFOLK VOICE • THE MAGAZINE OF NORFOLK CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY
For all the faltering start, some local businessmen identified the potential and that included the Hammond Electric Light and Power Supply Company, whose engineer E.A. Paris, came into contact with Mr JJ Colman, who wanted electric light in his mill. Paris persuaded Hammonds expert William Harding Scott to design a dynamo for Colman. The work was completed in 1884 and Scott and Paris left Hammonds and moved to Norwich to begin trading as Paris & Scott, Ltd with premises in King Street, with Paris looking after the finances and Scott the engineering. Investment arrived in 1887 from Mr. R Laurence, who put £6,000 into the
After the War, expansion continued and the firm was by 1938 employing 3,000 people employed in three factories. The firm rose to the challenges of the Second World War, making switchgear for submarines, controllers for tanklanding craft, and for the leg-lifting motors of Mulberry Harbour pontoons. Following the Second World War the company played a key part in the development of the emerging nuclear power and helped devise the standards used to qualify motors for these application, with the result that the company now has motors in all the UK nuclear power stations and further afield in China. The company developed special motors for oil rig applications allowing motors to be started with a smaller installed power generation. The company now has motors on most rigs in the North Sea as well as in many installations all around the world. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2016